Natural Cleft Quarry Methods

Natural Cleft Quarry Methods: "

How Dimensional Natural Cleft Flagstone Is Made

Flagstone Quarry Block

Check out this quarry block. If you click the image on the right it will enlarge. Notice the saw up on the upper block. After the soil and overburden rock is removed from the block with dozers and TNT, a saw like this is used to cut a 2′x3′ grid on the block. Next a skid steer with forks will pop up 2′x3′ cubes from the quarry floor.

Splitting Flagstone

Next the skid steer stands the cubes on end. As you can see in the picture, natural cleft flagstone has seems running through it. These are know as reeds. Using a chisel, workers at the quarry whack the reeds and split the block into natural cleft flagstone. After the 2×3’s are split, the stone will be graded for thickness. Unlike thermal treated flagstone, natural cleft flagstone has a variance in thickness. Usually the variance is 1/4″ in either direction. So when we say 1″ natural cleft, we mean natural cleft flagstone that is between 3/4″ to 1 and 1/4″ thick. After the flagstone is split it needs to be refined. Some stones will have portions with major defects like surface blemishes, cracks, wedging and breakage. We need to bring the stone to the re-cut table where we resize the flagstone. See the picture below Click the link to see the usual sizesflagstone is re-cut to. One inch thick natural cleft

Re-cut Saw Resizes Natural Cleft Flagstone

flagstone is used for stone laying applications that call for cement while 1.5″ thick flagstone is usually laid on various aggregate bases. Below is a patio made from Pennsylvania Blue Bluestone.

Dimensional Natural Cleft

Hand Splitting Natural Cleft Flagstone

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